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Friday, 3 August 2012

Favourite Friday - Mulberry Araline Bag

Today in the hot seat for Favourite Friday is my Mulberry Araline bag.

Toning with the background.

This must be about 6 years old now. I bought it shortly after Ben was born after spending a stupidly long time just mooching over it on the internet. I have it in the black colourway but this was not my first colour choice. I originally wanted it in a lovely auberginey purple shade:

I was sent a Mulberry email to say their sale was on and so I logged on to see if I could finally afford the Araline. The purple one wasn't there. Aargh. But there was a black and a chocolate brown one. I dithered for a few days and then finally made my decision to buy my first Mulberry. I went for the black. I don't remember being overwhelmed or falling madly in love with it straight away but gradually over the last few years it has become my go to handbag of choice as it fulfills so much criteria as long as I am without children.

I definitely can't fault the Araline for it's build quality or the sumptuously soft leather, the relaxed slouchiness or the dingly dangly tassles. Oooh - the tassles - I love these. I could wax lyrical about the tassles but I will spare you that much ... after all they are only tassles.... but they are tassles which are black on the outside and brown on the inside. Lovely.

Tassles to die for.

It took my three years before I actually took it out of its dust bag to use it. My friend L threatened to use it for me if I didn't. I'm one of those people who covets something, acquires it and then puts it away and gets it out every now and then to coo over it. It's like they're too precious to use and I might spoil them. But once it made it's outing, there was no stopping it and it has been on many a night out (not that I have many nights out) and many a shopping trip.

My bag is no longer in a dustbag. It is hung up or slung over the nearest bed knob to remind me to use it ... when I'm not using a tatty bag, that is. And do you know that in this case of everything happening for a reason? Well I was meant to have the black because it was nicer than the purple and black is classic and black is just black ....

...... and I've come to the strange realisation whilst writing this blog post that this is actually my favourite bag. Well would you believe it - it's certainly come a long way since second choice behind a purple bag!

I can see why it's your favorite bag. It's spacious, classy and durable. You're like a friend of mine, Sue! She buys a brand new bag, in it goes into her closet, wrapped in acid free tissue, dust bag and whathaveyou. We went out once and the minute it started to drizzle, out came a Tesco plastic bag to store her precious designer bag. Told her that if she did it again, I was going to chuck the horrid plastic bag and take the LV bag home with me!

You must have been separated at birth from my friend L! I'm bad but at least I've not done the plastic bag trick (yet). I'm like that with a lot of new things - I can't wear things straight away unless they're cheap - so I have to buy cheap things so I don't feel bad about ruining them .... and then the nice things never get worn. I need help.

That's a beautiful bag, Sue. You can see it's really good quality because it looks perfect after 6 years.

It's interesting what you say about not wearing some goods because they are too precious and you don't want to spoil them. I am exactly the same. In fact, I have been like that since I was a child. I remember I would save all my most beautiful pens and notebooks when I was in primary school... so much so that when I finally decided to use them often the pens had already dried up :)

I am still a bit like that nowadays with clothes, bags and shoes. I'm never the kind of person who wears the goods immediately after buying them. I always until I find the right occasion to wear them. Sometimes I wait so much that I when I finally put them on I realise that they are already a bit out of fashion.

But I'm getting better... For instance, I took my new Isabel Marant print dress to the beach when I was in Sicily, which for my standards is really a radical move. I mean, sea-salt + sand + sunscreen... in my mind that could have made irreparable damage to the fabric. Obviously,nothing happened and the dress still looks as new as when I bought it :)

Thank goodness for that - I'm not alone in my madness. I save up clothes and then wear them the year after - thankfully I buy things which are fairly plain so don't date too much. I have Jo Malone perfumes which have stood on my bathroom shelf for a few years and my red roses one which was pink in colour originally has gone and lost all its colour but I can't throw it out ... because it's still a pretty bottle and it looks nice on the shelf. Very sad.

I've tried to be less precious about everything I wear which is partly why I thought the blog would be good for me to exorcise the hoarding demons and actually get on with wearing some of my shopping spoils. Your Hamil dress is lovely - you need to get as much wear out of it as possible and because it has a print - it can hide a multitude of stains. And if it's cotton - there's nearly always a wash cycle which will cater :o) That's what I'm learning anyway. Though I was nearly beyond uncontrollable when I got pizza sauce spot on my Annaside white top - two washes later and a bit of googling on spot removal and we are back to normal. Phew.

Hello - I'm surprised you haven't got one! Yes, I'm pretty happy with this bag and I'm surprised anyone recognises it at all - I certainly don't think it was one of their popular ones. I'm looking for the Mulberry Euston as well - long discontinued. Give me a holler if you see one on your shopping travels ;o)